there is only so much heat in a stick of wood, but no other product manages that potential better and provides the heat distribution as evenly. The top plate of our stoves is 1/4" thick. You pointed out the use of 10 gauge, but not the 1/2" thickness of the by pass plate and other components exposed to excessive temperatures. I love the challenge you posted and so long as you are open to the learning of how our products excel, we can have a great dialogue. One last point. Webby is a great guy. He spends almost as much time on the site as Begreen. His efforts are genuine.
Thanks for weighing in, Chris. This is the kind of input I'm looking for.
Yep, the thermostat has got to be a big factor in keeping the right amount of air moving through the stove and extracting maximum heat from the load. And thanks for the info about the 1/4" top. That's what the Buck has as well, and I wouldn't worry about warpage in this critical area of the stove with that thickness. Nice beefy bypass plate, too. I recall one guy that was looking at a used Keystone or Fv, and it had a hole burned the bypass door.
I still don't understand how that could happen...the Ws cast bypass door isn't thin, by any means. One thing I like about the Buck is that the "door" is a heavy sliding plate so no gasket there to get caked up with creo that may fall into that area. And when the plate is slid back in the open position, it is subject to very little heat.
I agree about webby's contribution; He provides a lot of great info and helps out countless people with his knowledge. One of my problems is my tendency toward 'verbal hyperbole,' which is easy for folks to take in a way I didn't mean it to be. If I had begreen's even writing style, no one would
ever get annoyed with me.
Hope to get up webby's way at some point to check out the BKs in person. It's about 3 hrs. from me...
Here in the west, the BK stoves are still under 3000$ fully optioned out. At least my princess was. You eastern folks have historically suffered from a poor distributor situation where a middleman was taking a huge profit. Maybe that situation is gone
It seems like BK is making an effort to get more distributors in the network, so maybe we'll see the benefits of that here in the farther reaches.
What value does thicker steel offer when a thinner plate would not fail?
True, and another advantage is a quicker ramp-up back to operating temp. If I let the Buck burn down real low, it's like trying to turn around a battleship, getting 'er up to temp again.
That can be minimized by using the right amount of air and keeping the heat in the stove, but you still gotta heat that metal.
The ash handling system on the BK is like most other stoves. A plug and unsealed small pan. It works okay, I've used it, but the biggest drawback is the small pan volume. This is a design decision and another one of those factors that either is or is not important to you.
The Buck, being an insert, doesn't have a deep floor or pan but the flip-up door and big opening make it usable.
All current hybrids are crippled by excessively short burntimes....the WS offers a decent option.
Yeah, reports are they have good burn times, no doubt due to the fact that they can easily be dialed back into cat-only mode.
Thank for the summertime posts. Keeps us sane.
The season will be upon us again before we know it. I better get to on it...got a little stove maintenance to do.
Had I found this forum back in 2007 I would have never bought.....the famous "Neverburn downdraft system"
Yes, but just look at how much you've learned about stove operation, running that picky machine.
